


Almost Makes Me Wish for Rain

by onetruethree



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/M, Fluff, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-05
Updated: 2019-09-05
Packaged: 2020-09-25 22:36:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,393
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20379247
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onetruethree/pseuds/onetruethree
Summary: Marinette got her soulmark when she was 15, and it was nothing like she expected. All her life, she imagined her soulmark being something romantic like flowers, stars, or moons. So when she woke up on a sunny spring day and found she had her soulmark in the shape of a plain raindrop, colored all in black, it was a bit of a disappointment.





	Almost Makes Me Wish for Rain

**Author's Note:**

  * For [shortkingbolin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shortkingbolin/gifts).

> for the Lukanette Exchange by lukanette-exchange.tumblr.com
> 
> my exchangee was iloveyousweetbean! hope you like it <3

Marinette got her soulmark when she was 15, and it was nothing like she expected. All her life, she imagined her soulmark being something romantic like flowers, stars, or moons. So when she woke up on a sunny spring day and found she had her soulmark in the shape of a plain raindrop, colored all in black, it was a bit of a disappointment. Although, maybe she shouldn't have had such high hopes-- her mom's soulmark was a macaron. 

On particularly bad days, she wondered if it wasn't a raindrop at all, and instead a teardrop. She didn't want to believe her soulmate would ever make her cry, but some days the thought was hard to ignore. 

A week after she got her soulmark, Marinette was feeling particularly worried about her mark. She hadn't told anyone that it had appeared, even Alya. So, finally, she decided to ask Alya what it could possibly mean. She managed to get through the school day without worrying too much, but once the final bell rang, she rushed over to her best friend. "Alya, can I talk to you?"

Alya smiled and answered, "Of course, girl." It was one of the rare times when her soulmate, Nino, wasn't at her side, so that made it an even better time to talk. Marinette liked Nino, but she preferred to talk one-on-one with Alya, since it was awkward to talk about this sort of thing with the happiest couple in class. 

Marinette rubbed her wrist nervously, right where her soulmark rested on her skin. "Well, it's about my soulmark." She held up her hand for Alya to see. 

Alya's reaction was just as enthusiastic as Marinette expected, but she wasn't feeling the same way. "You got your soulmark? That's such great news!" She caught on quickly. "So why don't you seem excited?"

"I was. At first." Marinette blushed, too embarrassed to look Alya in the eyes, so she just stared down at her wrist, tracing the mark thoughtlessly with her thumb. "I thought it might mean that Adrien is my soulmate, since he gave me that umbrella the day we met." She wished that was true-- that was one of the few good memories she had that involved rain.

Alya placed a hand on her friend's arm. "So what's the matter? Don't you have feelings for him?" 

"I'm not even sure anymore. He's a great friend, but I just don't think he's my soulmate."

"There's only one way to find out." Alya showed her soulmark to Marinette-- a turtle shell colored all in green. "You have to kiss him." Alya had been just as confused about her soulmark when she first got it, but once she kissed Nino, both of their soulmarks became full of color and it all made complete sense. 

Marinette looked stunned at Alya's idea. "What? I can't just ask him to kiss me! What if he isn't even my soulmate?"

Alya shrugged. "Then you're one step closer to finding out who is."

Marinette went with Alya's advice. Somewhat. Being the slightly inept girl she was, especially around Adrien, she typed up a quick text to him asking to meet her outside the school in the morning. And Adrien, being just as socially inept, replied "yes" quickly without any thought to what this meeting could be about. 

* * *

After one of the most stressful nights of Marinette's life, she went to school early to try and clear her nerves before meeting with Adrien, and hopefully to go through what she planned to say. Unfortunately, once Adrien showed up, she forgot every word of her plan. 

"Marinette! Here already? I thought  _ I  _ was early."

Her first thought was to run in the opposite direction; she was afraid she seemed way too desperate and pathetic in that moment. But against her instincts, she stayed put. She chose her words as carefully as she could before telling him, "Sorry to ask you here. I'm probably being stupid and paranoid, but I just need to know about your soulmark. I know it's rude to ask, but I just want to make sure that ... we aren't soul mates."

It was definitely a surprise to him, but he didn't show it. He was convinced that she wasn't his soulmate, as least romantically anyway, that it shouldn't even be that hard of a question. He held his wrist out. A bee. 

That was what surprised Marinette. Not the fact that she wasn’t his soulmate -- a bee obviously meant notorious queen bee Chloe -- but she was more surprised to see how happy he looked. Chloe wasn’t the nicest person, but she knew Adrien and her had always had some kind of connection. 

“Does she know?” The tattoo wasn’t colored, so Marinette could tell they hadn’t kissed, but there were many reasons why they would have decided to wait. 

“Who?”

Or, Adrien could be as dense as always. “Your soulmate?” Marinette didn't know what to do-- she wondered if she should tell him that it was obviously Chloe, or should she just drop it and hope he figures it out on his own.

"No, I don't know who my soulmate is."

Marinette thought through her choices. She realized she could take this opportunity to kiss him-- maybe there was some sliver of a chance that they were actually soulmates. "Well, there's only one way to find out." Repeating Alya’s words from before, she inched closer to Adrien. 

"You mean?" He asked, and then stopped himself, setting a hand on her arm. "Is it you?" He caught a glimpse of her mark and had the same revelation she had. He remembered that moment in the rain as clearly as she had, even if they remembered it in completely different contexts. But could they actually be soulmates? "Okay, let's do this." He resolved, quickly getting even closer to her. 

She was shocked. Could this have actually worked? Could she be ready to kiss Adrien? Then, she pulled away. She wasn't ready. "I can't. It isn't me." She laughed a little, breaking out of her usually awkward state with him. "Adrien, I love you, but you're kind of an idiot sometimes." And in that moment, she realized she did love him. And she wasn't disappointed to admit that she loved him as only a friend. "A bee? Your soulmate is Chloe. Find her today and kiss her. You'll be an amazing couple." To finish her statement to the best of her ability, she gave him a quick peck on the cheek and then walked away. Later, she would have lots of fun talking to him about how it went with Chloe, but for now, she was determined to find her real soulmate.

"So? How'd it go?" Alya asked while they were supposed to be taking notes in first period. When Marinette didn't answer, presumably trying to do her work, Alya nudged her again. "How'd it go with Adrien?"

Marinette gave in, knowing she would have to tell Alya at some point, and whispered back "It went fine. But he isn't my soulmate." 

Alya just nodded. "So does he have a mark?" She had always been curious-- Adrien was always hesitant of his mark, always hiding his wrist with long sleeves. 

"I don't really have the authority to tell you about his soulmark, you should just ask him yourself. Or maybe in a couple days, he’ll work up the courage and actually confess." 

"You know something, don't you?" Alya grinned, already theorizing in her head about what could've happened between them. 

"So what are you gonna do about your own soulmate now?" 

Marinette was dreading this question more than the other one. Soulmates were supposed to make things easier, weren't they? She sighed. "I'm not sure. I might just have to wait and see by trial and error." That seemed to be the best method for now, since she knew her soulmate was someone she knew-- or else it wouldn't have shown up in the first place.

The only problem about soulmarks was that they aren't as helpful as one would hope. They can show up years before or after one meets their soulmate for seemingly no reason. So that meant Marinette had a long, difficult journey of kissing potential suitors ahead of her. That was, unless her soulmate showed up on her doorstep in the next few days, but there was no way that was happening, right?

* * *

A few days after her meeting with Adrien, Marinette was trying to look on the bright side of things. That usually didn't come too hard for her, but it was proving a little more difficult in this particular instance. There was a pretty great perk to it, though-- she was having lots of fun with Adrien now that the romantic tension side of their relationship was completely cut out. Plus, he and Chloe were getting along great. Or a least as great as Marinette had seen Chloe.

She still liked to stare at her soulmark sometimes as a reminder that her soulmate was out there, and even if it took years, she could always count on someone being out there that would love her for who she was.

That very person then knocked on her door. “Luka?” she asked through the door, seeing his warped yet somehow still attractive figure through the keyhole. She opened the door for him and then asked again. “Luka? What are you doing here?” 

He shrugged. "I may have heard that you were looking for your soulmate, and I got curious. I think your friends are a little more talkative than you counted on." 

After cursing Alya under her breath, Marinette let Luka in, stopping for a second to look outside. She hadn't realized it was raining. "It's really pouring, huh?" She asked, partly out of real interest, but mostly just to avoid talking about the elephant in the room.

"Yeah, it's nice, isn't it? I love the rain, the sound always reminds me of a song."

She wondered how he always found a way to be poetic. 

"So, your soulmark," he started, finally deciding to just go for it, "can I take a look at it?" 

She wanted to show him, but she was suddenly embarrassed. She knew he wouldn't judge her for it, especially since it wasn't something she could control, but she had never been proud of her mark. She saw it as plain, not romantic at all. She tried to imagine what his looked like; she assumed it was probably just as beautiful as him. 

Nonetheless, she held out her arm for him to see and slowly pulled back her sleeve to reveal the teardrop-shaped mark. 

He studied it for a minute, thinking long and hard about its meaning. Wordlessly, he held up his own arm and did the same as she had, showing off his own mark. 

And there it was: a colorless outline of... a ladybug? Marinette couldn't even begin to wonder what that could mean. 

"Confusing, right?" Luka chuckled and put his arm down. "Soulmarks never make sense at first, but one thing is always the same." 

Marinette knew what he meant, and she was glad to have someone who understood her struggles. She wasn't calm in that moment, though, because she was thinking about what they had to do next. "There's only one way to find out, right?" 

And although she was totally expecting it, it still startled her when he asked. "Can I kiss you Marinette?" When she nodded, he quickly and eagerly kissed her. It was short, but far from underwhelming. If it was simply a kiss, she would've wanted to savor the moment more, but she looked down at her wrist and caught a glimpse of color. 

It wasn't a raindrop, or a tear, or anything even close. Her mark was now purple and embellished by a small music note in the center. It was a guitar pick. 

Luka looked over, stunned, both by the fact that they were soulmates, but also by what her mark had turned out to be. He quickly pulled his own guitar pick from his pocket and held it up next to her wrist. It was an exact match. "Marinette, I--"

Marinette interrupted his sentence by placing a finger on his wrist. It  _ was  _ beautiful now that it was full of bright reds and deep blacks. "We're soulmates," she stated the obvious simply, trying to process it. She reminded herself to thank Alya for being talkative, because she realized she would've been too afraid to try this without a little push. She felt like the luckiest girl; when Luka showed up at her door, she thought it was a long shot that someone like him would be her soulmate. In an instant, she imagined their future together, and was relieved that she finally figured out the mystery to her soulmark. It felt like a miracle. 

"I can't believe it," Luka said, agreeing with her own thoughts. "Marinette, I always hoped it would be you. If it wasn't you, I don't know what I would've done. I've been in love with you for a while now, Marinette."

Well, that was another surprise. "Luka, I can't believe it either. This feels like a dream."

“That's exactly it, Marinette. You're perfect. You’re the melody in my head, but the music is never just  _ music  _ to me. It's what got me through everything with my dad, it's what keeps me positive. You have no idea what it means to me to have finally found someone who embodies all that safety to me. Who makes me feel the same way music does, who allows me to be truly free. Marinette, you are the best thing that ever happened to me."

Marinette loved how poetic he was, and she loved just listening to him go on about how much he loved her. But it also saddened her. "How could I ever be good enough for you?" She turned over his hand and caught a glimpse of his soulmark. "I mean, a ladybug? What does that even mean?"

Luka shook his head. "It means I must be very lucky to have found you."

She smiled and pulled him into a hug. "I'm sorry I'm not eloquent enough to tell you how much I love you."

"It's okay." He pressed a kiss to her wrist. "This says it all."


End file.
